75 Comments

• 1. katieface  |  June 27th, 2006 at 11:51 pm

  Sorry, no advice here. The floors look SO MUCH BETTER than the carpet! Even if you do nothing else, I love it!

• 2. Deb  |  June 28th, 2006 at 1:01 am

  WOW! Your floors are gorgeous, are you SO excited?!?!?!
  I am not a fan of the busy wallpapers, so my taste would run towards taking it down.
  I don’t know a whole lot about fixing up wood floors, we have always had them, but since we rent they are done by the time we get to them. I would guess from my many years of watching HGTV, that you just refinish them!

  Double wow, the ghosts have opinions on the runners! I love love love your house

• 3. Simon  |  June 28th, 2006 at 1:23 am

  The floors, I agree, look MUCH better than the ruddy old carpet.

  And the wallpaper?

  I would spray paint a big ol’ redruM right in front of Hattie Belle’s room, just to see what would happen.

• 4. sogalitno  |  June 28th, 2006 at 1:27 am

  the floors look GREAT without the carpet - and they seem in good condition… maybe just a good waxing?

  i love english country living and design so i like the wallpaper. save your energy for something else right now - like that pee smell.

• 5. Pink Trees (formerly pink rocket)  |  June 28th, 2006 at 1:29 am

  the floors are gorgeous!! don’t cover them!! i bet mr. pipe and mrs. kitchen didn’t have carpet! they’re gorgeous! maybe that was the thunk, to not recover…sand and varnish my dear!

• 6. k  |  June 28th, 2006 at 2:36 am

  you dont need to sand that - that floor is in a good state, have a closer look is it lackered or waxed? whatever it is just do that again. and wax is the easiest/least messy solution… dont sand it - the mess is unbelievable…

• 7. Amanda  |  June 28th, 2006 at 3:56 am

  Sand very lightly so as to not create a lot of dust. Especially if you are using a polyur. or varnish. Of course it’s hard work. To not sand before hand would be nearly criminal. You won’t achieve a nice or nicely finished end product. If it’s waxed you won’t be able to varnish anyway, without stripping the floor. You can test to see which it is wax or varnish. There are a variety of ways to wipe up the dust. They must have had a carpet runner originally. Many moons ago I put myself through college selling and demonstrating wallpapering, tiling, wood finishing, painting - decorative techniques, and kitchen/bath design. Good luck and God Speed

• 8. Daren  |  June 28th, 2006 at 5:39 am

  I would rip the wallpaper down, sand the floor and refinish it. You can rent the proper floor sander at a Rental Depot and you’ll be done like that. Then slap a coat of either poly or varnish on it. Whatever.

  I’m not exactly an expert, but I did grow up in the house that is still being remodeled (big house) and then I went and married a guy who thinks it’s great fun to rip the whole house worth of carpeting up on a Sunday morning. JUST FOR KICKS! Ahem.

  Good luck! And, keep up the awesome writing!

• 9. MeeA  |  June 28th, 2006 at 6:27 am

  Floors? I’m with Amanda.
  Wallpaper? I dunno - if you’re into that whole countryish look, leave it as it is. If it were my house? I’d strip it off and paint the walls something light, so it feels like there’s more space.

• 10. Barb  |  June 28th, 2006 at 6:31 am

  Would you please come over and tear up my carpet? Do you think I could possibly have beautiful floors like that too?

• 11. Bethany  |  June 28th, 2006 at 7:48 am

  We have very, very similar houses (though so far ours appears to be unhaunted and I will NOT be emailing Tree to find out for sure!)

  We stripped all the historic wallpaper, which came off in one pull in most rooms because it never really stuck to the plaster. In the rooms where it did stick, we painted right over it.

  Our wood floors are worn, worn, worn so once you figure out an economical way to fix that give me a head’s up! Really, it’s much prettier than carpet though, isn’t it?

  My husband and older daughter fell down our wood stairs together when she was 6 months old. Luckily neither was hurt more than a couple bumps and bruises, but we went out THE NEXT DAY and put in a runner. Highly recommended!

  I wrote about our old house here…

  http://iwilllosethisweight.blogspot.com/2006/05/home.html

  I wonder if Mrs. Kitchen likes grapes?

• 12. Julie  |  June 28th, 2006 at 8:04 am

  Great job, it looks so fab!!!

  What would I do with it?

  Did the smell go away? If so, and you don’t mind the current look, just go with it. The pics look great and the old markings go with your house.

  If the smell is still lurking, rent the sander, sand it, then seal it with four coats of polyurethane. It will then look so new and beautiful that everything around it, even things you now think are fine, will look smarmy by comparison, and you’ll feel compelled to renovate again and again…

• 13. Ann  |  June 28th, 2006 at 8:33 am

  Maybe we can go through this journey together! I am moving into my new house this weekend.. with crazy messed up hard wood floors and very busy wall paper!!! LOL

• 14. the Mater  |  June 28th, 2006 at 8:35 am

  Great job on the back-breaking work of pulling up the old carpet but I bet you didn’t use a face mask and that worries me no end.

  Sweet pea, you need to take care of your lungs.

• 15. the Mater  |  June 28th, 2006 at 8:39 am

  Looks like you’ll have to at least do some light sanding over the cryptic numbers to get rid of them. I wonder if Norman wrote that.

• 16. marian  |  June 28th, 2006 at 8:52 am

  Those are gorgeous floors! Beautiful!

  You’re lucky. When we pulled up the carpeting in our old house we discovered that some yahoo, in a moronic attempt to level the floors, had sanded through them in spots— right down to the under-floor stuff. So we will eventually have to replace them. Right now we just have carpets thrown over the bad spots.

• 17. Angela  |  June 28th, 2006 at 9:19 am

  The floor looks great! It looks like it needs to be sanded and varnished with many coats of poly - HOWEVER - you may want to hire a professional. Woodfloor are touchy and plus if you coat it with poly, anything can get stuck like hair, dust, etc maybe a occassional footprint if one of your girls decide to run across.
  Great job! I used to live in a old house built in 1935. It took frequent sanding to get the floor to look just right. Just make sure you pick a stain that matches the baseboards.

  Girl! You gotta get rid of the wallpaper. If I was there, I would have had it gone by the first week.

  Good luck!

• 18. Kimberly  |  June 28th, 2006 at 9:41 am

  For the floors, they look like they’re in pretty good shape. I think wood floors look their best when they’re not “perfect” and show some of the character that comes about naturally as they age. They might need some light sanding, but I wouldn’t go too heavy handed with them. As for the paper, I’d take it down. It’s too busy for that space.

• 19. anonymous  |  June 28th, 2006 at 9:43 am

  Becoming quite the fixer-upper aren’t we? Based on the apparent width of the floor boards (not much to gauge with), I would say pine, maybe Birch, maybe Maple. In one of the pictures one can see some grain in the wood so probably not soft pine. If you can easily leave an indent in the wood with a finger nail, then you have soft pine. The growth rings seem small which would lead one to believe a harder wood than pine, maybe Southern Yellow Pine if pine at all. If you are going to leave the wood exposed you will need to sand because the original finisher only finished the wood that would (no gopher rhyme here) be exposed – looks like they put a runner down the middle. Not removing this would just expose this fact further.

  If you are not going to cover then I would sand and then poly – stain in between these steps for a darker finish. If you are going to totally cover it, then do nothing, except maybe seal it again; if you are going with a runner down the middle, then lightly sand and poly again.

• 20. ao neko  |  June 28th, 2006 at 9:55 am

  A light sanding will take off the scars from previous floorcoverings and even out the color of the wood. Then, seal with polyurethane. I concur with Angela, who recommended hiring a professional, at least for the sanding. The sanding machines are big and heavy and in my experience, it takes some time to learn how to use them without further dinging up your floors, and it’s not like you have extra floors for practice.

  As for the wallpaper — first try soaking a panel with hot water from a spray bottle and see if it peels off. If not, it’s pretty well adhered to the plaster and you’ll need steam. Rental steamers are much easier to use yourself than floor sanders.

  If I were you, I would save a repetition of the pattern and frame it on the wall. I’m just sentimental like that about house history. Plus, your extradimensional friends might appreciate it.

• 21. Vikki  |  June 28th, 2006 at 10:21 am

  I’m not good at figuring out what type of wood anything is. The wider planks, I thought, tend to be pine which is a soft wood. But, I can’t tell if they are really wide or if it just looks that way in the pic. Maple? Ours are maple.

  The floors are in fabulous shape which is very exciting. That said, they will be magnificent if you sand and poly. We used a runner on our stairs so that we didn’t have to refinish them but I wouldn’t put a runner on the hally or anything. Those will be easy enough to do and will be beautiful. As for the wallpaper, my vote is that is all has to go. When we moved into our house, we realized that every single room was wallpapered. The rooms we thought were painted had wallpaper beneath the paint. We stripped every room and it was worth it.

  Sounds like you have a lot of work ahead of you.

• 22. candace  |  June 28th, 2006 at 10:41 am

  If it was my floor, I’d sand off all the old surface and stain it a cherry color. Then I’d poly it or whatever the floor guy recommended. Did I mention that *I* wouldn’t actually do the work? The floor guy would be the one doing the work because I’d inevitably screw it up somehow. And I wouldn’t put a runner in, because I have horrible dust allergies and I’m not supposed to live with carpet. But that’s just me.

  As for the wallpaper: down it would come. Quickly and gleefully.

• 23. Ceece  |  June 28th, 2006 at 10:44 am

  From a fellow old (and haunted) house owner, I would suggest (as others have) sanding downt he floors and reapplying some polyeurathain.(SP?) You will be shocked at how good they end up looking.

  We are in the process of taking down all the wallpaper from the walls(plaster) and in some lucky cases getting to refinish the walls with drywall (hooray) but wow does it look (and smell!) so much better.

  Also, if you want to have some sort of design on the walls you could look into faux painting, either doing it yourself, or hiring a professional.

  If you ever want to talk old home stuff feel free to shoot me an email! I could vent for days. Oh and I am having my first house reading next week. soo excited!

• 24. karina  |  June 28th, 2006 at 10:55 am

  I kinda like the wallpaper–it’s so (retro/kitschy) ugly, it’s cute.

• 25. shelly  |  June 28th, 2006 at 11:25 am

  I personally wouldn’t put runners on the floors they are beautiful! and I personally love the ghost stories

• 26. Andrea S.  |  June 28th, 2006 at 11:46 am

  Okay, I’m with everyone else. Don’t cover them! Though I’m not floor expert, I would think you’d have to sand them first, especially to get the numbers up. The wallpaper? If you like the country look, I’d pick one side or the other and match it. Personally, I’d take the wallpaper down and paint the hallway something bold, something to offset that beautiful wood, like a medium green or deep red. But then again, a dark color might close the space in. And I love the way you write.

  And no one else mentioned it, so maybe I’m just on crack or something, but I see a face in the third picture from the top. Well, head and shoulders actually, like someone is standing just around the corner on the left side of the picture and their shadow is falling into the hallway from a backlit room, but there are almost features to the face, like the floors are shiny and the figure is a reflection. Since the floors aren’t shiny, I’m wondering if this isn’t Mr. Pipe? Don’t know which direction his room (Hattie’s) is in. Of course, it could also just be some discoloration on the floor since it appears there’s a lighter spot running through the middle of the wood from years of people walking down the middle of the hallway. I looked at the other perspectives though, and I don’t see it in those. Hmmm? Interesting or am I just seeing floor discoloration and talking myself into a picture of a ghost?

• 27. Lisa S.  |  June 28th, 2006 at 12:10 pm

  The floors are such a great surprise to find under there! Yay! Although I know nothing about fixing them up at all…I think they are fantastic to have…..but that wallpaper…good lord Jenn….I yelled out “MY EYES…MY EYES…..” like Phoebe did on friends…remember that? hahahaahahahahahahahah “I’m BLIND…my EYES” hahahahahaha….

  While it is a huge chore to pull it all down it can be done and it would be worth it in the end. I wish I was there to help. I helped a friend of mine pull down wall paper and redo her kitchen and it had a similar pattern so this is TWICE I’ve been assaulted with it!

• 28. Charlie  |  June 28th, 2006 at 1:18 pm

  Yeah….I thought I saw something too….looks like laundry on the floor….in the room at the end of the hall. Maybe it was a ghost or something. j/k… I like the floors…..lose the wallpaper…..unless you go for that girlie look. Oh I forgot. You do. I am looking forward to the reveal when you are done.

• 29. Samantha  |  June 28th, 2006 at 1:56 pm

  Here’s a great trick that is easy/economical, and you can sit while you do it if you like.

  MURPHY’S OIL SOAP AND WINDEX!!!!!!

  1/4 cup of Murphy’s Oil Soap

  1/8 cup of Windex

  1 gal of very warm water

  1 scrub brush with boars hair

  scrub the dickens out of your floors.

  Then when all of that is done and dried you might need to do it again.

  The windex prevents your floors from becoming sticky and it sanitizes your floors so if you had cat pee or human pee or whatever kind of pee you had–it’s not going to be there much longer–just the lovely smell of murphy’s oil soap.

  Then go back with a big bottle of linseed oil and a soft rag–lightly coat floors with the rag–you’ll see the difference right away and your floor is probably very thirsty from neglect.

  I did this to my floors before I left my apartment because they were a mess to begin with and my apartment people loved me–your house will smell so good and the babies can walk on it and crawl on it and eat off of it.

  Wall paper is another story and I have no idea there–I’m fixing to remove a heap of it myself.

  I hope this helps!

• 30. Sybil  |  June 28th, 2006 at 1:57 pm

  Your floors are quite nice. They are probably either oil finished or waxed but I suggest getting an expert opinion. You don’t want to make a costly mistake.
  I do have a suggestion about the Eau de Hamster. Burn some sage. Really. You can either get a smudge stick from a holistic shop or put some in a bowl with a piece of charcoal and walk around the house with it as it burns.. It really cleans the air. I suspect that is where it got its reputation for getting rid of bad spirits.

• 31. Rebecca  |  June 28th, 2006 at 2:16 pm

  I’m not generally a lottery afficianado, but I’d play those numbers pronto. It’s about time one of the house’s messages paid off for you.

  (Then I’d use my winnings to pay someone to refinish the floors….)

• 32. Amy  |  June 28th, 2006 at 2:49 pm

  just popping in to say those look like the douglas fir floors we had in a previous house. Of course, we live out west where fir and pine are abundant and hardwoods aren’t used for anything less important than family heirlooms. we sanded ours lightly and stained them with a cherry stain and put the poly junk over the top. They came out beautifully. If you don’t over do the sanding you should be able to clean up the most irregular patches but maintain the character of the floor.

  what a fun surprise to find under the nasty carpet.

• 33. margalit  |  June 28th, 2006 at 3:33 pm

  You appear to have yellow pine floors. They are not a hard wood, but not a soft wood either. They do tend to scratch. You’ll need to sand them down before you finish them. Rent a large sander and a small corner sander from your local Rental Center. Get PLENTY of face masks, as they’ll be a lot of dust. To sand floors (I’ve redone a 21 room Federalist with both wide yellow pine, oak, and some maple flooring) you’ll want to wash down the floors, so you can see what is plain stain and what is just dirt.

  Then you take the big sander and go in a circular motion (very important) around the middle of the floor, leaving about 6″ along the sides. This is to keep the floor boards from getting too banged up.

  when you rent the sanders, get a LOT of sand paper, first in a coarse grade, and then a medium grade, and finally a very fine grade. You’ll want to remove the scratches and spots with the coarse grade, smooth out the depressions with the medium grade, and then snooth the floor to prepare for finishing with the fine grade.

  Do all of the floors first, then do the same 3 step process with the small corner sanders. Once the floors are sanded smooth, go over them with tack cloths to pick up any dust or tiny shavings. They must be perfectly clean for finishing.

  Choose what kind of polyurethane you want. With kids, you don’t want varnish. You’ll have to redo it too often. Polyurethane is definately the way to go, as it stands up to a LOT of abuse. It comes in both oil and water based. Get the water base. It doesn’t smell as bad and it dries quickly. There are three finish types, dull, satin, and high gloss. HIgh gloss looks like a basketball court. It is VERY shiny. Satin is what I’d choose, it’s still glossy, but not reflective. Dull is, well…dull.

  YOu’ll want to put at least 3 coats on. You spread it with a large sqeegee, following the grain of the floor. Don’t paint yourself into a corner. Watrebased dries within hours, so you can do more than one application in a day. But the floor MUST be totally dry before you go for the next coat. In between coats, clean the floors with a tack clothe to pick up any dust that has settled.

  3 coats ought to last for at least 10 years, and your floors will be much more water resistant (and pee resistant) than they currently are.

  Good luck. It’s hard work but SO worth the results.

• 34. The Muttering Muse  |  June 28th, 2006 at 4:33 pm

  I would rip off the wallpaper, paint the walls a pretty color and refinish the floors. I think they have a lot of promise!

• 35. geogirl  |  June 28th, 2006 at 5:30 pm

  Jenn, you have no idea how lucky you are! It’s almost impossible to find real honest to god wood floors out there today. Everything now is that pre-fabricated, slap it together over night crap. Well, at least in my area anyway. Old houses may be temperamental but they’ve got personality and style to spare!

  Don’t you dare cover it up. Sand those floors and coat them…I promise you won’t be disapointed. It will be gorgeous!!

• 36. Anonymous  |  June 28th, 2006 at 5:41 pm

  Sunflower ticking - definitely. It’s bright and happy.

• 37. Sheri  |  June 28th, 2006 at 6:39 pm

  The floors are so much better than the carpet! You’re lucky to have such nice old wood underneath. Even if you do nothing more to them you are better off than you were. Love it!

• 38. the Mater  |  June 28th, 2006 at 6:58 pm

  Your readers are so helpful and knowledgeable. I think they’ve offered you some wonderful solutions but I don’t think you should fuss any more with the hard labor. You’ve done enough stripping.

  I’d say go down to the local gym or pool hall and hire a couple Chippendales to do the sanding and varnishing for you.

  Of course, it will be hot up there in that narrow hallway, so insist that they work in their shorts, topless. Perch yourself at the far end of the hallway, sit on the bannister, and make sure to keep a cold pitcher of lemonade handy for those strong muscled handymen. Don’t forget to have a cd player around and play some bump-n-grind music to get them moving. If they perspire too much, rub them down with a cotton towel.

  Make sure to send David and the girls out for some quality time of their own while you supervise the job.

  If those flowered walls could talk …

• 39. Michelle  |  June 28th, 2006 at 7:10 pm

  Hi, love your writing! And you’re so lucky to have uncovered those beautiful wood floors. Personally, I like the look and character of old/distressed wood floors. I would not sand, unless it’s absolutely necessary. I really liked Samantha’s (comment #29) suggestion to clean the floor well and oil them. It would be the fastest, cheapest and easiest way to go & will still preserve the character of the floors. Also, except for maybe a runner on the stairs, I would NOT cover them up with rugs.

  The wallpaper - I don’t like it, but if you do keep it. If you don’t like it the “right” thing to do is remove the paper first and then paint. I’ve heard that mixing water with fabric softer in water bottle, then spraying it on the wallpaper takes it right off. Just let it soak in and peel away. If the wallpaper is on there really good (no tears, bubbles, peeling) then you could use a primer made for going over wallpaper then paint it. This way is faster & easier - but may not look as good for as long. But you also don’t know what’s under that wallpaper - it could be a mess.

  And that’s my two cents Good luck!

• 40. Spot the Wonder Dog  |  June 28th, 2006 at 8:25 pm

  Well, I’d post something here, but it would probably be lost in the static. Jenn sure does get a ton of comments these days.

• 41. Gina  |  June 28th, 2006 at 8:26 pm

  Mmmm, nice floors! Isn’t it crazy that people were so excited to cover them up with icky carpet?? When I ripped up my carpet, the only thing revealed was oriented strand board, sometimes known as spam board, complete with stamped warnings about formaldyde off-gassing. Yippee.

  And, WHOA, lose the wallpaper! busy busy busy.

  zip zip zip, go go go!!!

  (I need some zip, too…)

• 42. ChristyD  |  June 28th, 2006 at 8:58 pm

  I agree with Samantha’s Windex and Murphy Soap idea for the floors, and I think Geogirl and Michelle are right… your floors are beautiful and so hard to find. They’re authentic. As for the wallpaper, I think it is workable into the rest of your house. If you don’t want to take it down or paint over it, I don’t think you absolutely have to. I think it can be worked into a Country French look (e-mail me if you want more ideas on that). What does the hubby think of the wallpaper? Will it drive either of you nuts?
  Also, I agree with the Mater (as I am the mom of a 6-year-old with asthma and I read your post when you had the crud recently) PLEASE PLEASE take care of your lungs.

• 43. jbeeky  |  June 28th, 2006 at 9:52 pm

  LOVE THOSE FLOORS! CLEAN EM AND ENJOY!! Plus, I think the wallpaper can be fabulous with those floors all gleaming from windex and wood soap!! I think it is fab, truly and congrats on finding that treasure of a floor. People pay huge dollars for that in their house. Why even consider a floor runner until winter? Let those nice floors breathe for a summer!!!

• 44. the Mater  |  June 28th, 2006 at 10:25 pm

  Murphy’s soap is a great product … just sayin’. I think you should go the least expensive and easiest route first. Give it a try!

  Definitely let the floor breathe for the summer!

• 45. Kathleen  |  June 28th, 2006 at 10:47 pm

  I would leave all AS IS (floor unveiled, wall paper in place) and carve into the flooring “Holly Hobby wuz here”.
  I love quirky wallpaper!
  H.K.

• 46. Rina  |  June 28th, 2006 at 10:49 pm

  Ooh. Floor jealousy. Those are gorgeous!
  Also, floor finishing expert advice jealousy - what a compliment that so many very smart people read your blog (to balance out the rest of us).
  I would like to say that I attended a Refinish Your Floor community ed class with Mr. Do It Ourselves, and we both left that room convinced that hiring someone else to sand and finish was the way to go . . . hence our pathetically sad unrestored kitchen floor . . . it just seemed that keeping the sanding even and level, and not creating huge divits in the boards, was not going to be something we could manage.
  On the walls I’d go with a light blue, maybe green, with a funky stencil design along the height where a chair rail would go in a room.
  Or with something fuzzy.

• 47. veronica  |  June 28th, 2006 at 11:45 pm

  If you use an electric sander on the floor, it is very easy to groove the floor, and that is permanent, forever, unfixable. Ours has several swirly grooves that are now a, um, decorative feature. Either hire someone knowledgable and cautious to do it for you or do the chemical stripping.

• 48. moxiemomma  |  June 29th, 2006 at 12:30 am

  holy moly those are some nice floors under that nasty carpet!! you lucked out. i say follow the mater’s advice and pay some cuties to do the sanding and varnishing. just say yes to murphy and his fabulous oil!

• 49. Mommy off the Record  |  June 29th, 2006 at 1:08 am

  There is truly nothing more delicious than peeling back old carpet to reveal shiny hardwood floors. They look like they’re in great shape too!

  By the way, this is my first time reading and commenting on your blog. I like your writing. If it’s OK, I’ll be back to read more…:)

• 50. Lola  |  June 29th, 2006 at 1:22 am

  I’ve never commented on a blog before, but I wanted to peep up to say that I do love the wallpaper, too. Lets the house have a bit of personality from the past as you add your own flavor to it.

  So beautiful. You’re so lucky with the floors!

• 51. Debby  |  June 29th, 2006 at 1:31 am

  We just recently (in the past 5 days) moved into our new house. It is a 1920’s home with wood floors which we lightly sanded and then covered with five coats of poly and they look absolutely gorgeous now that they are done. As to the wallpaper, unless you are truly in love with it, I think it is too busy for that space. I went with cream color on my walls which looks great with the hardwood floors and some older looking borders in most of the rooms.

  Good luck hun, the floors are a real find!!

• 52. Hermit  |  June 29th, 2006 at 6:45 am

  Margalit is right. It’s a soft pine subfloor. IIt will scratch and gouge really easily. If you don’t mind, do as she recommends. It will mean a lot of work but will look great if you maintain them.
  I remodeled a 1904 home in California and we had the same pink floor-covering and soft pine. We had dogs and wound up with a lot of scratches but I’d do it over again. Nothing like the glow from polyurethaned old wood.
  Man, that wallpaper is busy! Eek!

• 53. geogirl  |  June 29th, 2006 at 6:51 am

  I’m starting to agree with the folks who say just clean and oil. Sanding really needs to be done right and that means getting a professional and spending lots of money.

  Plus, if you sand you will loose those handwritten numbers and I think you should keep ‘em. It gives the house a cool historical feel.

• 54. KeriS  |  June 29th, 2006 at 8:04 am

  Sand it for sure. We refinished hardwoods at our old house (none here, unfortunately). Take off the boards that run at the bottom of the walls (what the heck are those things called????) Rent a sander that has a bag to catch *most* of the sawdust. Tape plastic across all doors to keep sand from entering rooms. Polyurethane it several times. Replace the trim boards at the bottom of the wall.

  The “padding” beneath your carpeting sounds like the same stuff we had in our house. It IS made of hair - horsehair to be exact. Not sure of the fate of the horses (glue factory?). It is my understanding from the carpet people who had to take a break every 15 minutes from all the allergens in our pads that they stopped making it in the 50’s sometime. That may help you date HOW OLD YOUR CARPETS ARE! Plenty of time for all types of pee to be deposited!

• 55. Erin  |  June 29th, 2006 at 11:47 am

  Well, you have a lot of expert advice here, but I’ll just chime in to agree with the don’t-sand-it yourself folks.

  My old landlord, who refused to hire anyone to do anything, sanded our floors himself, and gouged the crap out of them. Permanently. They would have been gorgeous otherwise.

  I add my vote to the Murphy Soap and Windex group!

  Good luck!

• 56. Tree  |  June 29th, 2006 at 2:41 pm

  WOW, beautiful floors! I don’t have any advice for you, but you’ve done a great job so far!
  Oh, and I think you should listen to Mrs. Kitchen.
  :)
  Also, I owe you a big email…it’s been on the fritz lately!

• 57. velocibadgergirl  |  June 29th, 2006 at 4:06 pm

  Another vote for simple refinishing over covering and a small feeling of envy for your gorgeous and many-faceted house.

  And I think the Mater is RIGHT ON with the Chippendale idea

• 58. Claudia  |  June 29th, 2006 at 4:33 pm

  If you do go the sand and poly route, I also vote for hiring professionals. It’s messy, toxic and time-consuming. Also, expect to to spend a few days to a week afterwards living somewhere else! The smell of the poly, even the water-based, is overpowering. We had our entire house (built 1915) of mostly pumpkin pine (a lovely very yellow-gold soft pine) and some new red oak floors sanded and poly-ed. They finished 3 weeks ago, and sometimes when I come in the house first thing I still get a whiff of it. It’s powerful awful.

• 59. Amalah  |  June 29th, 2006 at 9:14 pm

  Heh.

  We ripped up carpet when we bought our (early 1940s) condo and found floors that looked just like that (save for the MASSIVE NAIL HOLES from the subfloor the previous owner had installed) (crime! woe!).

  Anyway. Everybody said they were pine and would scratch and gouge and blaaah, but we loved them and hired someone to come refinish them professionally. Five years later, they still look incredibly gorgeous and it turned out that they are actually red oak and could probably go many more years before needing to be refinished again.

  Either way: the wallpaper needs to go. Like, now.

• 60. mamatulip  |  June 29th, 2006 at 11:06 pm

  Leave the floors, they’re beautiful!

  The wallpaper? Yuck. I’d pull it down and paint, personally. I’m not a fan of ‘paper.

• 61. marian  |  June 30th, 2006 at 9:22 am

  I agree with your mother with one exception. Hire someone to do the floors for you if you can possibly afford it. But hire professionals, not chippendales from the local pool hall. Unless you’re looking for more blog material.

• 62. Emptyman  |  June 30th, 2006 at 9:45 am

  Keep the floors uncovered. The wallpaper is an abomination. Strip it off this instant, young lady!

• 63. (spotted) Contrary  |  June 30th, 2006 at 10:20 am

  I know nothing about floors, so I have no advice there. As to the wallpaper, I usually HATE all wallpaper, but those walls look good, I think. Especially with the wood floors. If the wallpaper was in good shape, I’d stay with it.

  We’re tearing up the 30 year old carpet in our house too, but we’re on a slab (no basement) and our floors are concrete, so we’re going to be staining the concrete.

  I cannot wait to move up north and have both wood floors and a basement! Oh! And also, reasonable summer temps!

• 64. Sarcastic Journalist  |  June 30th, 2006 at 1:37 pm

  I’d make babies with those floors. And the wallpaper, well, it is kind of cool in a weird, wallpaper way.

• 65. mediakath  |  June 30th, 2006 at 3:08 pm

  The wallpaper really must come down! Now! And as for the absolutely GORGEOUS floors…..you have kids, right? Poly all the way, girl! Why risk it?

• 66. J  |  July 1st, 2006 at 5:56 pm

  I didn’t read all the comments so someone may have suggested this already. The guy we hired to paint the house said that there are a few things you can do in the case of wallpaper. 1- take it down (there is probably more underneath) 2. cover it with a primer that seals it down as well as the lead paint undoubtably underneath and paint it. 3. throw up new drywall over the old stuff because then you don’t have to worry about the lead paint dust which is bad news for the kids. Whatever you do, do not attempt to take it back to the plaster by yourself. We did that in our first place in SF in our daughters room and it took three months of jasco and heat guns and sealing the room off due to lead dust and hazmat suits etc. It was awful and it was a tiny little room.

  We are soon to be in the same situation as you when we take possession (if we take possession) of this old house in NJ. We are going to hire someone to sand and refinish the floors. I hope my floors are in as good of condition as yours, it’ll make the job a lot easier!

• 67. Lanne  |  July 5th, 2006 at 8:12 am

  No idea what the rest of your house is like.. but..

  I would be ripping off my wallpaper ASAP.. - hire all the gear. We did a wall (granted you have more to do).. in an hour.. using spray bottles and spraying mists of water on them.. it softened the glue and the paper came off in sheets. you can also get a roller thingy to perforate. Kids might enjoy squirting?

  Paint the walls… white if you are unsure of colour scheme…classy clean fresh and you can accessorise with anything… Change later as the whim and money allows. THEN tackle those floors… i would sand (hire a sander) and go a dark stain - it will hide a multitude of sins..problems and imperfections.. and go a lustre kinda finish.. shiny would be a nightmare in a travel path such as this and you would only be repeating the process in the very near future…

  Cant wait to see what you do!

• 68. Lanne  |  July 5th, 2006 at 8:14 am

  ps… maybe.. Mr Pipe was the one who did the hammering.. he was just answering your question

• 69. R*belle  |  July 6th, 2006 at 1:20 pm

  If I were an expert on wood floors I would be happy to help! If I were an expert on wood floors, I would be much wealthier than I am right now!

• 70. R*belle  |  July 6th, 2006 at 1:21 pm

  Upon furhter reflection, for a quick touch up I think you could buy some Johnsons paste wax and buff them yourself. The wallpaper? Just paint over it.

• 71. Coley  |  July 6th, 2006 at 3:17 pm

  Love the floors! Keep them bare!

• 72. kris  |  July 10th, 2006 at 10:29 am

  Oh, Jenn, I love your floors!

• 73. Sumo  |  July 11th, 2006 at 2:41 pm

  The August 2006 Consumer Reports has an article about flooring here:

  http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/home-garden/home-improvement/flooring-8-06/overview/0608_flooring_ov.htm

  If you want to discuss more of the specific findings, write me an e-mail.

• 74. Kelli  |  July 13th, 2006 at 1:37 pm

  Sand the floors down and refinish them. Strip the wall paper and go with a paint color that compliments both the floors and the wood work. I would suggest a sand color.

• 75. Angie  |  July 25th, 2006 at 11:35 am

  I know I’m really late to comment, but I wonder if the pee smell doesn’t come from the toilet? I remember you mentioned something about toilet trouble. Maybe it could be related to the sewer system as well?

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